


what are you running from, what are you running to (lost&found)

by sunshinesvt



Series: ((my favorite place is with you)) [2]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: M/M, Violence, lots of junhui being lost, mafia!au, pretty much just an angst fest, seventeen as an international mafia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-06-19 04:00:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15501876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinesvt/pseuds/sunshinesvt
Summary: Junhui runs away. He wonders if he'll ever find what he's looking for.





	1. Running From

**Author's Note:**

> Not entirely happy with how this turned out, but this story demanded to be told.
> 
> This takes place before "from auckland to seoul," but you don't necessarily have to read that first.
> 
> Warnings: there will be some brief mentions of violence and blood in this, but there will be nothing too gory.

They meet, the first time, purely by chance. Neither of them will remember it at first, seemingly an insignificant moment in time that would never mean anything later.

Junhui was young then- he doesn’t remember how old he was, around sixteen, maybe, but it was some point after the time he was beginning to figure stuff out. Hong Kong was just a bus ride away, and its red lights and more westernized culture provided Junhui with a comfort that he could never hope to find amidst the suffocating backdrop of Shenzhen.

He was a gangly thing back then, having already sprouted up into his tall figure but not quite filling out his frame. Walking in Hong Kong, he was afraid that someone would see and know exactly what he was, that he didn’t fit in here or in Shenzhen or anywhere. He walked with the confidence of a small ant, scurrying along the street of a large city far too big for him.

He remembers, distinctly, slamming into another boy and falling back a couple steps. Minghao had been even more gangly than him at the time, all bones and a permanent frown etched onto his features. And Junhui might not remember what they had said, if they had said anything at all, but he will remember this: Minghao stepping back into the light, the reds of Hong Kong reflecting in his dark eyes and cradling his cheekbones.

Even back then, he was beautiful. Junhui’s breath caught in his throat, and he was hyper-aware of it.

But Junhui was young, and Minghao even younger, too young to possibly begin to understand what was happening to them, what their lives would become. To the younger versions of themselves, this was just an insignificant moment, two strangers bumping into each other on the street in Hong Kong.

A muttered sorry, a soft smile, and then the two separated.

They met, and parted, the first time, purely by chance.

\---

They don’t meet for five more years. 

But this is how those five years go for Junhui:

At sixteen, realizing that he wasn’t good enough for Shenzhen, or quite possibly that Shenzhen wasn’t good enough for him. Either way, he didn’t fit into Shenzhen, felt like he could never fit in there. 

At seventeen, he realizes why. 

At eighteen, he tells his mom why, and she lashes out at him. He has bruises that lasts for weeks and a memory of his mother saying “you can’t tell anyone, ever” that lasts for the rest of his life.

At nineteen, he starts college and realizes that his life, his person, will never be good enough for his parents. He quells it down, keeps his desires locked up tight, right next to his heart, and doesn’t tell a single soul.

At twenty, he meets MingMing. It’s electric, it’s shocking, it’s wrong. Junhui realizes that it’s love. And then, at twenty and a half, when MingMing ends up in the hospital with broken legs and ribs, he realizes that it might be love, but it could also get them killed.

At twenty, still, he meets Seungcheol, who comes in the form of opportunity- opportunity for a new start, a new life, a chance to get away from the life that he felt like wasn’t his.

At twenty-one, he fakes his own death.

\---

Junhui fucks up a lot at first. It takes him a couple months to finally figure it out, which is about a couple months longer than it should have taken. Seungcheol is patient, but patience can only shelter and protect Junhui so much in this world that he’s fled to.

Seungcheol presses the cold tip of the needle into his side, and Junhui hisses, flinching away from it. Seungcheol just tsks, telling him to be quiet and that he’ll get used to it eventually.

“I don’t want to get used to it,” Junhui says. 

Seungcheol replies, “Then stop being dumb and getting hurt.”

Junhui closes his eyes. He’s still too messy, not covering his tracks properly and barely making it out of the missions alive. He’s lucky to have made it this far, but he knows that luck won’t always be on his side.

Seungcheol sits back on his heels and cuts the string, placing a layer of gauze over the wound. “It’ll heal,” Seungcheol says calmly, and then stands to put the kit away.

Junhui watches as he moves away, tracing the figure of his back with his eyes and reminding himself that this is his life now. He shifts his eyes to look out the window, the towering buildings of Sydney shining in the harsh sunlight.

“They’re getting hesitant to let you out on another mission,” Seungcheol says, but Junhui knows what the older man is saying. That he doesn’t want Junhui to go out again, doesn’t want Junhui to hurt himself because he’s not good enough for this lifestyle.

“Seungcheol,” Junhui says, “what do I do.”

Seungcheol turns back to look at him, and his figure is surrounded by a halo of harsh sunlight streaming in through the windows. 

He looks at Junhui, and then looks away. Says, “get better.”

Junhui looks away, can’t look at Seungcheol. He knows that Seungcheol feels guilty, just slightly. Knows that Seungcheol had tried to save him, having found Junhui on the side of a street in Shenzhen, barely clinging onto life with shaking fingers.

He hates the way that Seungcheol looks at him sometimes, uncomfortable with the pity and poorly veiled concern that lines his eyes everytime he looks at him. He hates it, but he feels something warm too, every time Seungcheol looks at him like that-- something warm unfurling in his chest when he realizes that Seungcheol knows who he is and yet still looks at Junhui like that, like he cares.

He thinks about the way that Seungcheol looks at him, and then thinks about the way that his mom had looked at him when she came to the hospital to drag him away from MingMing’s hospital bed. 

There’s warmth in Seungcheol, a warmth that Junhui has forgotten existed until Seungcheol began to gently patch him up.

He looks at Seungcheol, whispers, “I’ll get better.”

\---

Seungcheol remains stationed in Sydney, as the head-in-training for when the current head leaves. But Junhui is a lowly operative and he does not have the luxury of staying in Sydney forever. 

They send him to Hong Kong, and Junhui feels simultaneously relieved and suffocated to be going back to a place so similar and close to where he grew up. 

Seungcheol stands on the stairs next to Junhui as they wait for the car to pull up. Junhui feels stiff, scared maybe, but he’s not really sure. 

The car pulls up, parks, but Junhui can’t force himself to move his legs, to walk down. Seungcheol claps a hand on Junhui’s shoulder, firm and reassuring. Somehow, Junhui feels safe.

“Come back soon,” Seungcheol says.

Junhui looks at Seungcheol, sees a home, sees a haven, sees a safety. 

He nods, and then walks away, feels Seungcheol’s safe hand fall away from his shoulder.

In the car, he watches as the buildings fall away in the rearview mirror behind him, and awaits for the buildings of Hong Kong to replace them.

\---

Hong Kong is just as red as he remembers it being from when he was here last time. 

Here’s how the days pass in Hong Kong:

The first day, he meets Kris, the head of Hong Kong, who towers over him and has eyes that are cold and hard, a sharp contrast to Seungcheol’s warmth and care. Kris hands him a folder, and Junhui accepts it with trembling hands. He doesn’t open it.

The second day, he finds his way to the cafeteria, sits at a table in the corner and picks at his food moodily. Another guy comes to sit with him, stick thin and with sharp eyes, and Junhui shrinks more into his seat until the other guy stares at him and just mutters “Jeon Wonwoo.” Junhui registers that it sounds like Korean, and feels a safety in knowing that the same language rolls off of Wonwoo’s tongue that Seungcheol speaks.

The third day, he sits on his little balcony, staring out at the sea of buildings spreading across the Hong Kong cityscape. He thinks that if he squints enough, he can see Shenzhen veiled in the clouds. It looks small from the distance, the city that Junhui had lived in, felt swallowed by, so miniscule from this far away. Somehow, it doesn’t make Junhui feel better-- just makes him feel even smaller, so microscopic that he doesn’t even exist.

Wonwoo finds him on the third evening, clutching a gauze pad over his left eyebrow, and Junhui takes a turn at patching someone up. He’s not that good at it, hands shaking and legs weak, but Wonwoo turns to him, trusts him, and Junhui finds it miraculous to have someone trust him like this. He has a needle poised over Wonwoo’s eyebrow when he whispers it, a secret hanging in the air between them, and Wonwoo doesn’t even react, just nods slowly and says, “me too. Now can you stitch me up or not?”

There’s a safety that Junhui feels around Wonwoo, and when they curl up like cats facing each other on Junhui’s bed, he says, “I feel safe here.” 

Wonwoo says, “that’s a strange thing to say, considering that you could die at literally any time.”

Junhui says, “I felt like I was dying before, anyways.”

Wonwoo doesn’t say anything, just reaches across the space between them and curls a hand in Junhui’s shirt.

The fourth day, Wonwoo hovers behind Junhui uncertainly while Junhui opens the folder at last, hands slow and shaky. There’s a death warrant in there, and Junhui feels his eyes shut, and takes staggering breaths. Wonwoo doesn’t say anything, just places a hand on Junhui’s shoulder, gentle and kind and safe, and Junhui presses himself into Wonwoo’s warmth.

The fifth day, Junhui staggers back to the headquarters, somehow both numb and reeling, feels like he’s sinking. Junhui feels his legs buckle underneath him, and he needs to sit on the stairs, head in his hands as he breathes. He breathes until he feels the sun come up, and the warmth begins to creep back into his skin.

The fifth day, or maybe early on the sixth, Kris looks at Junhui, says, “go get some sleep. Rest for a bit,” and Junhui feels like crying, because Kris is looking at Junhui with eyes that look like they care, and Junhui doesn’t feel like he deserves it.

The sixth day, still, Junhui isn’t sure since he hasn’t slept, he falls into a seat at a table with Wonwoo and another man, just as skinny as Wonwoo but seemingly colder, intimidating in ways that Wonwoo could never be. 

Wonwoo smiles sadly at Junhui, and the other man studies him with sharp eyes that look cold and warm at the same time. There is a familiarity in the other man’s eyes, and Junhui gets the sinking feeling that he’s seen this man before, with his long black hair falling in his eyes and sharp features that somehow feel like comfort and coldness at the same time.

The man says, “first real mission?”

Junhui nods, unsteady. The man says, “You’ll get used to it.”

Junhui is reminded of Seungcheol, and he aches, aches for the warmth and safety that he can’t have. “I don’t want to get used to it,” he mutters, and he can hear his own words echoing from a long time ago. 

The man studies Junhui for a bit, and says, “you’re a good man,” and then, “good men don’t last long here.”

Junhui says, “I know.”

The man looks at him, and Junhui doesn’t quite know what he sees. The man looks away, back down at his food, and says, “Xu Minghao.”

Junhui looks at his food too, says, “Wen Junhui.”

\---

“Xu Minghao,” Seungcheol says, and his voice drawls on the other end of the phone. “I remember him, small and skinny and strong in a way that I hadn’t quite seen before.”

Junhui hums, says, “he called me a good man.”

Seungcheol laughs, a deep laugh that resonates through Junhui’s chest. “You are one, Junhui.”

\---

Junhui takes extra hand-to-hand combat lessons, since he never learned back at home and he’s trying not to die. He shows up in the morning, gets his ass whooped, goes to bed sore and aching, and then shows up again the next morning. It’s exhausting.

Wonwoo leaves, one day, a list of cities falling from his lips as he outlines where he will go next. He stands on the steps next to Wonwoo as they wait for a car, and Junhui is the one that puts a hand on Wonwoo’s shoulder, this time. Feels the warmth seep into his palm and feels the warmth step away from him as Wonwoo leaves with a gentle smile on his face and a promise to see each other again. He feels cold when he turns to go back inside.

It’s strange to be on his own again— he misses the warmth of Wonwoo and Seungcheol, aches for the safety he felt with them. He watches the sunset on the horizon on his balcony, watches the red hues cast over Hong Kong, and he imagines the way that they would look over the gray emptiness of Shenzhen.

The balcony next to his slides open, and he somehow doesn’t need to turn to know who it is next to him.

“Beautiful,” Minghao says from next to him, close and yet so far. “I always loved how the sunset looks here.”

Junhui says, inexplicably, “sunset usually represents death.”

Minghao hums, says, “depends on how you look at it. I’ve always thought that the night is more free than the day.”

“The darkness usually represent evil,” Junhui mumbles.

“Usually,” Minghao says, turns to look at Junhui. “But I find that the sun tends to glare, while the moon tends to shine.”

Junhui finds a cold sharpness in Minghao’s voice, but it’s not intimidating or suffocating, just something new that Junhui could find comfort in if he tried. He looks back out at the horizon, squints, says, “I can almost see Shenzhen from here.”

“That’s where you’re from?”

Junhui nods. Minghao doesn’t ask him.

“Dongbei,” Minghao says, unprompted. “You can’t see it from here.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

Minghao doesn’t answer, just hums lightly and Junhui takes it as what it means, that it’s neither good or bad, it just is what it is.

“Makes me feel small,” Junhui says. “I thought seeing Shenzhen as so small and far away would make me feel bigger, but I just feel small.”

Minghao says, “we’re all small. Just depends on if we feel small and free, or if we feel small and burdened.”

—-

Junhui goes to Manila next. 

There’s no one to send him off this time, no one to stand next to him on the stairs with a firm hand. 

He gets in the car, looks up, and sees Minghao standing on the balcony. He looks small from down below, but free. Small and free, so unlike Junhui, who remains small and burdened and feels like he’ll never reach a day where he isn’t. 

He gets in the car, looks out the window, and watches as the buildings around him swallow him up.

—-

Here’s how it goes:

He meets Soonyoung in Manila, young and free and full of smiles and a comforting presence. They drink at a bar and Soonyoung laughs, bright and light, when Junhui stumbles over the Korean on his tongue, and he lights up the dim bar in a way that Junhui is drawn to. 

Seokmin is in Bangkok, and Junhui is reminded of Soonyoung’s bright laugh back in Manila. They get a boat and splash around in the water until Junhui almost forgets about what he does, the world he is in now. They splash around until Junhui almost forgets what he did that morning, like he didn’t just wash the blood off of his hands and bundle his clothes and put them gently in the trash. They splash around until Junhui almost forgets to sleep fitfully that night, but he still wakes up sweating and to an empty room that feels too big for him.

New York City is so bright and full that Junhui feels lost in it. Hansol sidles up to him so easily that Junhui feels anchored, with Hansol’s funny laugh and awkward and lanky limbs and slow way of speaking. They walk around on the streets in their hoodies and Junhui can almost pretend that he’s a normal high school kid again. Then Hansol runs into a trash can and screeches and then laughs in a choking way that makes Junhui stop and think about the brother he left back at home, and suddenly it doesn’t seem funny anymore and he feels small, so small in this sprawling city with this carefree boy next to him.

In Auckland, he meets Jisoo, who speaks Chinese just well enough to make Junhui feel like he’s back in China, which is somehow simultaneously comforting and suffocating. Jisoo speaks in a tone so soft and delicate with eyes pretty and piercing, and Junhui feels vulnerable, too open, weak, and he wonders if Jisoo can see all the flaws that he is barely concealing.

Jisoo holds him up when they stumble back to the headquarters from the bar, his presence solid and warm by Junhui’s side. He deposits Junhui softly onto Junhui’s bed, and Junhui vaguely remembers reaching out to hold Jisoo’s wrist, a soft, “why are you doing this for me?” spilling from his lips.

Jisoo’s eyebrows furrow, and Junhui knows that he messed this one up, that Jisoo will suddenly realize that Junhui is not deserving of the safety Jisoo has given him, but then Jisoo reaches down and brushes his fingertips lightly across Junhui’s eyebrows and it leaves warmth in its wake, and he says, “because you need someone to take care of you.”

Jisoo leaves, at some point, but Junhui feels like sinking, feels the warmth from Jisoo’s fingertips burn into his skin, and he thinks,  _ I don’t deserve to feel this. _

\---

Junhui stands on his balcony in Singapore and stares at the sky. It’s pink and yellow now, with the sun’s last rays clinging on desperately to the sky in a feeble attempt to stave off the darkness that comes with night.

“If you stare at the sky long enough, do you think that you’ll find what you’re looking for?”

Junhui doesn’t even jump, just looks over at the balcony next to him to see Minghao leaning against his own balcony, not looking at the sky, but at Junhui. Junhui doesn’t feel surprised, is somehow relieved, like he had known Minghao was going to be here and was just waiting for him.

Junhui says, “I’m not quite sure what I’m looking for.”

Minghao hums. “What are you running away from then?”

Junhui looks at Minghao, his lanky body and carefully constructed nonchalance that makes Junhui wonder if Minghao is running too, running from his demons and nightmares just like Junhui is. 

“Shenzhen,” Junhui says, because it’s the only thing he can think of.

Minghao looks at Junhui, and Junhui feels exposed, like Minghao can see right through him. Minghao says, “you’ve already run away from Shenzhen.”

Junhui thinks about Shenzhen, thinks about the way that it had suffocated him, thinks about how small he felt amongst the Shenzhen skyscrapers and the crowds of people. Thinks about how small he felt in his own home, like he never really belonged. Junhui thinks about how he ran from Shenzhen, but he still feels so small, so suffocated.

He wonders if he’ll ever be able to run away from Shenzhen.

He says, “I have.”

He thinks Minghao knows what he means. He wonders what Minghao ran away from in Dongbei, and if he ever succeeded.

Minghao says, “maybe.” Then, “doesn’t seem like you’re happy though.”

Junhui says, “who ever said anything about being happy?”

Minghao says, “we all deserve happiness.”

Junhui thinks about his life, thinks about the people he deals with on the daily, the looks in their eyes before Junhui ruins their lives. He thinks about Shenzhen, the family he ran away from, the look in his mom’s eyes when he told her and then the look in her eyes when she came to drag him from MingMing’s hospital bed. He thinks about MingMing, who he left defenseless on a hospital bed, who had only ended up there because Junhui had loved him, loved him too much in all the wrong ways. 

(He thinks about the lives he has ruined. There was the man this morning, his mom, MingMing, himself. Happiness seems like something someone like him doesn’t deserve.)

“There’s something about you, Junhui,” Minghao says, and his eyes are sharp and cold and Junhui feels once again like there is nothing he can keep hidden when Minghao looks at him like that. “You’re a good man.”

Junhui thinks about the first time they met, how Minghao had said that same thing to him back then too, and thinks that he wasn’t a good man, not in that moment, and certainly not now.

Junhui says, “I’m not a good man.” Watches as the sun sinks below the horizon and the sky fades to a dark blue, the pink hues disappearing from the sky as the sun gives up on its mission to keep everyone warm. 

Minghao doesn’t say anything, and Junhui feels cold without the sun there. He says, “good men deserve happiness. I don’t think I qualify as a good man.” The words hang in the air above them, and he feels heavy with them. 

Minghao asks, “why don’t you deserve happiness?” It’s a heavy question, but it sounds light coming out of Minghao’s mouth. Junhui looks at him, watches as Minghao finally tips his head back to look at the darkening sky. He wonders if Minghao feels free without the sun. 

Minghao closes his eyes, and it looks like he’s basking in the sun’s rays except there is no sun, only darkness, darkness stretching over them for miles and miles with no comfort or warmth to be found.

Minghao asks, “Is it because you kill people? Is it because of the life you live now?”

Junhui looks down at the roads below him, looks at the lights on the sidewalks and the darkness creeping in between the buildings, wonders where his new friends are, if they’re lurking in the shadows waiting to desecrate the city that looks so beautiful in the light. 

“Or,” Minghao says, “is it because you can’t quite run away from the demons that haunt you?”

Junhui looks into the distance again, imagines he can see Shenzhen, just as he always does. He thinks about MingMing’s eyes, wonders where he is and wonders if his eyes are just as dull as when Junhui left him under the glaring lights of that hospital room.

Junhui has seen what his love can do to people, and he thinks that maybe there is no way he will ever be able to run away from that.

He says, “I don’t know.”

(But he knows.)

\---

Him and Minghao part easily. They don’t see each other for another two weeks, but Junhui feels like Minghao is somehow there with him, his words repeating inside Junhui’s memory like a ghost that Junhui can’t escape.

Here’s how those two weeks pass:

In Singapore, Jihoon stares at Junhui with a stiffness and Junhui welcomes the change from the warmth that he had been receiving from everyone else. Even among the coolness, Junhui still finds himself sitting with Jihoon on the steps of the building at sunset, watching as the cars pass them on the highway and watches as the shadows grow greater and greater. 

Taipei brings Jeonghan, who sits down with Junhui at dinner and then refuses to leave Junhui alone, like a suffocating parent that is determined to stifle their child with overwhelming love and affection. It leaves Junhui gasping for air and he feels like he’s drowning, drowning in the warmth that Jeonghan has given him and unsure if he wants to drown more or claw desperately for freedom. 

(He thinks of Minghao saying  _ why don’t you deserve happiness? _ and wonders if he let himself be pulled into Jeonghan’s affection, would he be happy? It makes his stomach sink, and he wonders if maybe he hasn’t been running away from Shenzhen this whole time, but happiness.)

Chan clings to him quickly in Tokyo, and Junhui wonders if Chan sees him as a source of warmth, and then he wonders how he could possibly be warmth for someone else if he feels so cold inside. Chan grabs onto his arm while they walk, and Junhui feels warmth bubble up in his chest, but he pulls his arm out of Chan’s grasp, thinks that Chan should find someone with more warmth to offer him. He ignores both the way that Chan’s face falls slightly and the way that Minghao’s voice whispers  _ what are you running away from, then? _ in his head.

Jakarta is bright and happy, but there’s something that lurks beneath it all, and Junhui has never felt more of a connection with a city. Seungkwan stands next to him on his balcony, and throws his head back in laughter as he coughs out another joke that makes Junhui giggle quietly into his hand. Then, Seungkwan says, “I never thought that I could be happy, you know?” and Junhui looks down at the golden lights beneath them and the shadows that they hide, and wonders if Seungkwan’s happiness is entirely real.

He gets a call from Minghao, and Junhui feels at ease when he hears Minghao’s voice on the other end, a voice that he had been hearing on repeat for what feels like years, and Minghao says, “they’re partnering us up for a mission in Hong Kong. You want to do it?”

Junhui thinks of Minghao’s eyes, sharp and cold and somehow deep and clear, like Minghao can see through Junhui and Junhui feels simultaneously vulnerable and safe when Minghao looks at him. He thinks of Minghao’s voice in his head, saying  _ what are you running away from? _ and Junhui doesn’t know, doesn’t quite know what he has been trying to escape this whole time, but he thinks that maybe Minghao knows, has somehow seen in it Junhui’s eyes or maybe his soul.

He says, “I’ll see you in Hong Kong.” Ignores the way the Minghao in his head says,  _ or is it because you can’t quite escape the demons that haunt you? _

\---

Kris’ eyes are just as sharp and cold as they were last time as he slides the folder across the table towards him.

Junhui takes it, holds it in his trembling hands in his lap, and wonders if his hands will ever stop trembling when he accepts these folders.

Kris eyes Junhui’s hands, and Junhui wonders what he sees in them.

“I’m assigning you a partner,” Kris says, and his voice is deep and flat.

Junhui asks, “why?”

Kris says, “because I think you need it.”

Junhui stares down at his hands, at the manila folder folded in his lap. They’re still trembling. 

Kris asks, “why are you here, Junhui?”

Junhui says, “I don’t know.” 

Kris hums. He reaches across the desk, picks up a cigarette and lights it, the smoke billowing out in front of him in clouds. It chokes Junhui, suffocates Junhui in a way that has him almost gasping for air, and he’s not sure if he’s suffocating just because of the smoke or if it’s because of something else, because of Kris’ eyes that see right through Junhui and see that he doesn’t belong here, didn’t belong in Shenzhen either, and might never feel like he belongs anywhere.

“I tend to find,” Kris says, “that there is a certain freedom here.” Here, as in in this life, in this mafia organization, and Junhui wonders where Kris finds this freedom. “Everyone has problems, demons that haunt them, and they are so often too busy being consumed by their own problems that they forget to judge others for theirs— there is a certain beauty in that, isn’t there?”

Junhui nods.

“And yet,” Kris says, “there is no happiness.”

Junhui clenches his hands. Chokes out, “happiness?”

Kris takes another drag, blows out more smoke, and Junhui suffocates a little bit more. 

“Happiness,” Kris says. “What an interesting concept. I haven’t seen it in years.”

Junhui looks out the window, looks at the Hong Kong skyline, squints and looks for Shenzhen, somewhere in the distance. 

“People come here to run away,” Kris says. “Everyone I see is running, running away from the demons that haunt them.”

Junhui looks back at Kris, his dark eyes that have softened to something more wise, something less sharp but still seeing right through Junhui. 

“Running away,” Kris says, “is different than running towards something. Running away entails fleeing, running from demons with only the idea to get away, without a destination in mind.”

Junhui echoes, “without a destination.”

“Without a destination,” Kris repeats. “Without a destination, how can you ever find a way to happy?”

Kris sees, Junhui thinks, Kris looks at Junhui and sees the way that Junhui is running away, running away from Shenzhen, the demons that are still there, and even though he’s far away, away from Shenzhen, he’s not really free.

Junhui asks, “what should I be running towards, then?”

Kris drags his eyes over Junhui and to the window, and his eyes reflect the red hues of Hong Kong. He squints, and Junhui wonders what Kris is imagining on the horizon.

“That,” Kris says, “is entirely up to you.”


	2. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junhui is running, and he remains lost.

There’s an alley in Hong Kong, and Junhui’s feet lead him there without his mind’s approval. Minghao trails slowly behind him, drinking in the sights of the tall buildings surrounding them.

Junhui looks back at Minghao, thinks _beautiful_.

There is really no other way to describe Minghao, not with his lithe body and sharp eyes that are both cold and sharp and somehow warm and safe. With his measured steps and carefully constructed nonchalance, with his sharp tongue that manages to spit out the most haunting words Junhui has ever heard. (And they haunt him, still. He can here Minghao saying what are you running from? everytime he closes his eyes.)

From behind him, Minghao says, “this will work nicely.”

Minghao is staring at the walls, at the entry point into the alley, just off of the main road, his eyes calculating and careful, so careful, and Junhui feels a little overwhelmed all of the sudden, from standing in this little alleyway with darkness looming above them and the red lights seeping into the air.

Minghao asks, “we can corner him. What do you think?” and Junhui turns to look at him, except:

There’s a moment, when Junhui turns, where he sees something else: a beautiful boy, smaller with sharper edges, standing across from him in the alleyway. He sees the reds of Hong Kong, but he sees them in the reflection of this boy’s eyes, sees them cradling his cheekbones. Junhui can’t for the life of him, remember what they looked like in the sky on the buildings, can only see them reflected on this boy. They’re somehow infinitely more beautiful that way.

Junhui feels his breath get punched out of his gut, and travels back to a moment where he was weaker, or maybe was just as weak as he is now, travels back to a moment where he saw a beautiful stranger in the alleys of Hong Kong and had his breath catch in his throat in a way that he hated, in a way that he still hates.

He sees Minghao, in this moment, and that one, and he wonders if Minghao remembers it too.

He sees Minghao, in this moment, and that one, and he thinks that it was so long ago, belonging to a different time of his life, but how it’s still somehow the same. Junhui stands in front of Minghao, just as he did all those years ago, and feels just as small and terrified as he did back then.

\---

“Where do you go,” Minghao asks, “when you get that look in your eye?”

Junhui looks away from Minghao, looks at the walls of the alley around them, close and cold and suffocating, and says, “Shenzhen.”

Minghao doesn’t chuckle, doesn’t move, just looks at Junhui with his deep, dark eyes, and Junhui feels suddenly smaller under his gaze. “You said that you were running away from Shenzhen,” Minghao says, “and yet you go back so often.”

“I don’t know if it’s that I go back to Shenzhen,” Junhui says, looks back at Minghao, shy and scared and somehow safe, “or if it’s that Shenzhen comes back to me.”

Minghao looks some more, steps a little bit closer, just close enough that Junhui can count his eyelashes and see the scar that he has on his right cheekbone, just close enough to reach and touch, and yet somehow so far away, separated by the differences between them, between the small and burdened and the small and free.

“Perhaps,” Minghao says, his voice low, “you and Shenzhen come back to each other.”

Minghao looks at Junhui, and from this close, Junhui can see the way that Minghao’s dark eyes drop off into something more significant in their depths. He wonders, again, what Minghao sees in him, and he wonders if he’ll ever find out.

He must see something in Junhui’s eyes, or in Junhui in general, because he steps forward, just slightly, just enough that Junhui can feel the warmth radiating off of Minghao’s body, but not close enough to actually touch.

Minghao tips his head back, presses his lips, just his lips, lightly against Junhui’s.

Junhui holds his breath.

Minghao steps away. Junhui doesn’t breathe.

“Why,” Minghao asks, “do you hold your breath?”

Junhui stares at Minghao, stares with eyes wide and breath held. Minghao watches him. There’s a look in Minghao’s eyes that tell him that Minghao somehow knows the answer already, and Junhui is the one that’s left in the dark.

“You’re far away from Shenzhen,” Minghao says, “and yet, you carry it with you.”

Minghao tips his head back, looks at the sky this time, dark and endless above them. He looks free, seems so free and unburdened that Junhui aches because he himself is so chained and suffocated.

“Freedom,” Junhui says, “is hard for me to find.”

Minghao looks at him, and his eyes look sad now. Junhui wonders why.

Minghao says, “freedom is already here, Junhui, if you let yourself breathe.”

\---

The door next to him slides open. Minghao steps out.

Junhui stands on his balcony, looks up at the darkness of the sky and the stars that work feebly to try and drive some of the loneliness of the night away.

It’s been almost six months of this, Junhui thinks as he watches the night sky. It’s been almost six months of fleeing to the different headquarters, running away from whatever it is that he had been trying to run away from and never succeeding. Running away from something that he doesn’t know and running towards nothing, lost with no definition.

It’s been six months of running, running, running, and Junhui feels lost, feels just as lost as he did on the first day, when Seungcheol found him crouched on the sidewalk in Shenzhen, shivering and trembling from the memory of MingMing’s eyes as he left.

He thinks of Wonwoo, who sleeps curled up in a ball and eyes shut tightly. He thinks of Seungcheol, who tends to him with gentle, warm hands but never lets Junhui do the same. He thinks of Kris, sitting in his big glass office, staring at the horizon as if imagining a home. He thinks of Jisoo, back in Auckland, with strong arms and pretty eyes, who had smiled sadly down at Junhui when he had asked why Jisoo was taking care of him. He thinks of Minghao, and the way that Minghao’s lips looked when he said “Dongbei” that one time on the balcony.

Everyone has their demons, Junhui thinks, and everyone is running away from theirs. And yet, none of them, not Wonwoo or Seungcheol or Kris or Jisoo has ever seemed to be able to out-run their demons. They’re all running, and they all remain lost.

\---

Minghao lights a cigarette on the balcony next to him. Junhui watches the tendrils of smoke curl into the air.

“There was nothing for me in Dongbei,” Minghao says. “No family, no friends, no dark past. I guess that was what I was running from: nothingness.”

Junhui traces the smoke into the air, watches it curl itself around the weak stars. “Did you ever succeed?”

Minghao takes another drag, and Junhui feels something sour rise up in his throat. “I think,” Minghao says, “that we’re all lost.”

Junhui asks, “what would it take, to not be lost?”

 

More smoke curls into the air.

Minghao says, “the opposite of lost is found. I wonder what I can find to make me feel less empty.”

Junhui looks at the space between them, thinks of the things that divide them. Thinks of the way that Minghao tips his head back to face the empty, dark sky, and how Junhui chokes on the smoke of the cigarette.

Junhui looks at the space between them, and sees a vast ocean, the differences between a boy suffocated by his past and never quite able to breathe and a boy that has too much freedom, nothing to tie him down, and never able to find something that takes that void away.

They’re so different, but they’re also the same-- running away from something they can’t escape. Lost.

\---

Wonwoo says, “I’m in Auckland. Jisoo says hi.”

Junhui wonders, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, what Wonwoo is running away from. What he is looking for.

Junhui smiles, and says, “Tell him I say hi too.”

Wonwoo hums.

Junhui asks, “are you happy?”

There’s silence. Junhui holds his breath.

“I don’t think,” Wonwoo says on the other end of the phone, voice tiny through the wires and space that separate them, “that happiness is ours to have.”

Junhui’s blood runs cold, and he thinks of Wonwoo curling in on himself in his sleep, thinks of Wonwoo glancing at him from across the table, thinks of Wonwoo turning his face towards Junhui in openness, in trust, and Junhui thinks that it’s not fair that Wonwoo doesn’t think he deserves to be happy, because he does.

Junhui asks, “what are you running from?”

Wonwoo hums, and Junhui imagines the way that the blue in Auckland must cling to Wonwoo’s thin frame in sadness, in sorrow.

Wonwoo says, “what are you?”

“You know,” Junhui says. He thinks of Wonwoo’s careful expression when Junhui had said hey, I’m gay on that day so long ago in Hong Kong, how Wonwoo had turned away from him with nonchalance and said me too.

“No, I don’t know,” Wonwoo says, and Junhui knows that he’s answering both questions somehow, and that they’re both lost, just two boys lost in a world too big for them and running away from ghosts that won’t let them be.

Wonwoo says, “I don’t think you know either.”

\---

Castor and Pollux look down at him ominously. Junhui squints to see them better in the sky, eyes the twin eyes of Gemini, watches as they twinkle weakly, dangerously close to the fading sunset on the horizon.

Junhui wonder whether he’s Castor or Pollux. He likes to think of his life in a distinct before and after timeline, and he likes to think of him from before as another him. He wonders if he would be Pollux now, trying to carry a dead Castor into eternity with him.

But he knows, deep down, that he’s still Castor, or maybe still Pollux, or both of them combined, because while he likes to think of his life in a distinct before and after, he knows that it’s more blended together— that he hasn’t changed all that much from before and has never really left Castor behind.

The balcony door slides open next to him, and Junhui wonders if this will always be how they meet. On balconies, hundreds of feet above the ground, suspended in the air, closer to the darkness than those below them. Small.

“What are you looking for?” Minghao asks, and he comes close the the bannister between them and tilts his head back, like he always does, to soak up the darkness above them.

Junhui looks at him, says, “gemini,” and he tilts his head back too, imagines he can feel the warmth of freedom that Minghao can. (That Minghao is running from.)

“The twins,” Minghao says. “Interesting choice.”

Junhui says, “it’s my zodiac sign.”

Minghao hums, and Junhui can feel Minghao’s eyes on the side of his face, so he turns and looks at him, looks at his face that is sharp around the edges and the mouth pulled into a straight line, and thinks that Minghao looks beautiful under the darkness, beautiful and free.

Minghao says, “it’s somehow fitting.”

Junhui asks, “I don’t know if it’s fitting or not.”

“It is,” Minghao insists, his hand coming to clutch at the bannister between their balconies, and Junhui looks at the hand on the bannister and listens to the tone in Minghao’s voice and thinks that this is a side of Minghao that he had never seen before. “It’s fitting,” Minghao says, “because there’s such an obvious divide inside of you.”

Junhui asks, “There is?” because if there is a divide, it’s certainly not obvious to him.

“There’s what you think you are,” Minghao says, “and then there’s what you actually are.”

Junhui wants to protest, wants to say that there is no difference between the two, because Junhui knows himself, knows himself far too well and doesn’t like what he sees. Instead, what he says is, “no, there’s what I think I am, and what you think I am.”

Minghao watches Junhui, and they’re fully turned towards each other now. Junhui’s heart beats steadily in his chest, and he’s suddenly aware of the way that his feet are planted on the ground, and he feels too heavy, too tied to the ground, and like any second now, the ground will open underneath him and swallow him whole.

Minghao says, “I suppose you’re right.”

The moon shines above them, and Junhui feels safe in it, safe in the slight light that is casting over them, the slight light that leaves shadows behind to cover Junhui, make him feel less vulnerable. Because in front of him, Minghao looks at Junhui, really looks at Junhui, and he sees a significance in his eyes that makes his chest ache in ways that Junhui can’t describe, because it feels like Minghao’s eyes hold emotions that are more than Junhui could ever understand.

Junhui asks, “what do you think I am?”

Minghao says, “you’re good,” and Junhui feels a sour taste rise in the back of his throat.

Junhui whispers, “I’m not.”

Minghao looks off to the side, looks at the buildings stretching below them and around them, and Junhui knows what he sees, sees a world too big for the two of them, sees a world that is filled with demons that no one can really escape.

“You are,” Minghao says slowly, and Junhui feels a weight in his words, “somehow the only good thing I’ve found in this lifetime.”

Junhui feels his heart drop. “That’s not hard,” Junhui says, “when you live in a world like this.”

Minghao looks back at Junhui, but his eyes are unfocused, and Junhui wonders what he sees, where he goes, when his eyes look like that.

“I’ve seen this world and I’ve seen a world that’s vastly different than the one we live in,” Minghao says slowly, and his usually sharp tongue seems to stumble around the words, just slightly, just enough. Junhui wonders if Minghao has ever thought this before, has ever tried to put a voice to his thoughts. “Somehow, in both, you are the only truly good thing I’ve found.”

Junhui says, “I’m not quite sure that I believe that.”

“Like I said,” Minghao says softly, “there’s a divide between what you think you are, and what I think you are.”

Junhui looks at Minghao, thinks of him saying I wonder what I can find to make me feel less empty and asks, “Is that a good thing or a bad thing? To have found me?”

Minghao reaches across the banister and clasps his hand around Junhui’s wrist, pulls him closer to the banister so that Junhui can feel Minghao’s breath on his skin.

“We’re all lost,” Minghao whispers, and his breath ghosts across Junhui’s face. He closes his eyes. “I found you. I wonder if that’s enough.”

Junhui whispers, just as soft, “I don’t know.”

Junhui holds his breath. Minghao whispers, “it might be, one day.”

There’s a pause, a moment of silence, and Junhui feels his heart fall in his chest, because he doesn’t feel like he deserves this, like he deserves to be the good thing that Minghao has found, to be the good thing that Minghao finds to make him not feel lost. Minghao’s hand burns warmth onto his wrist.

There’s a press of lips against his own, light and quick, and then it falls away.

Minghao steps back, and his hand disappears, taking its warmth with it. Junhui opens his eyes, sees Minghao looking at him with the same significance in his eyes and Junhui feels like he’s falling, falling down into a void that he can’t see the bottom of.

Minghao looks at him, and then he turns. Says, “good night, Junhui.”

Junhui holds his breath.

\---

“Watch out for the new operative,” Seungcheol had said over the phone.

Junhui had asked, “why?”

Seungcheol had laughed and said, “you’ll see.”

Junhui is certainly seeing something now, but he isn’t completely sure what it is. Something strikes Junhui weirdly when he looks at him.

Minghao is sitting across from Junhui, chatting easily with the new operative. His words fall easily from his lips, but they’re carefully constructed, and Junhui can see the way Minghao peers curiously at the man sitting next to him.

The new operative smiles at him, and it’s all teeth, a bright smile that makes Junhui squint a little bit at the canines that poke out from behind his lips.

“Wen Junhui,” Junhui says, an offering of sorts.

“Kim Mingyu,” the new operative says, happy and bright, too happy and bright for under the glaring lights of this cafeteria.

Something had striked Junhui weirdly when he had first looked at Mingyu, and now he understands what it is-- there is no sadness, no regret, no trace of demons hidden behind his eyes. Even Soonyoung, Seokmin, Seungkwan, Hansol, all those people he had met who had laughed and giggled and joked with him and lit up his world with slight bits of happiness that made the suffocating bearable, even they had eyes that showed the fact that they were running away, that they were lost.

Mingyu’s eyes are bright. He looks like he’s found exactly what he’s been running towards this entire time. Junhui wonders what it was that Mingyu had been running away from, if anything at all, and what Mingyu has found that made him not lost.

Maybe it was this life, Junhui thinks, that Mingyu found, and somehow, that thought is the scariest of them all.

“There’s an order here, in SEVENTEEN” Minghao says, “and it’s frankly pretty confusing.”

Mingyu smiles, and there are those canines and those sparkling eyes again, and Mingyu says, “I don’t really care about the order, I just want to be the best.”

There’s a pause, and Minghao looks at Junhui over the table. Junhui thinks of the significance in Minghao’s eyes, and knows that Minghao is wondering the same thing: how did Mingyu find what he was looking for? What does it feel like to not be lost?

“There’s a long way to go,” Minghao says, turning back to Mingyu and speaking slowly, carefully, “to reach the top.”

Mingyu shrugs, and says, “I know. I’ve heard a lot about the current top operative.” He knocks back a glass of whiskey. “I think his name is Jeon Wonwoo?”

Junhui nods, slightly numb.

“Do you think he’ll be able to give me some tips?” Mingyu asks, and he asks so nonchalantly as if he was talking about any other job where you could have a mentor and not about a job that is founded on the principle of taking and ruining lives.

Junhui thinks of the current best operative, thinks of Wonwoo who sits at the top of the order and who is still somehow so miserable and lost and running away from something he will never truly escape. Junhui looks at Mingyu and sees someone who has found himself, who knows what he wants. He thinks of Wonwoo and looks at Mingyu, and he thinks of all the ways in which they are different, separated by a vast sea and wonders if these two could ever understand each other.

Junhui says, “maybe. Maybe not.”

Junhui looks at Mingyu, and Mingyu smiles back, and Junhui aches, aches from thinking of someone who isn’t running, who isn’t lost, who looks happy.

He wants it too.

\---

They go on a rainy Tuesday.

Minghao has it planned to a tee, and Junhui feels relieved at the idea that he does not have to plan for ways to ruin another life, doesn’t have to think of it as somehow directly his fault.

It’s quick.

They lure him into the alleyway easily enough, Minghao sidling up close to Junhui and pressing his lips against Junhui’s in a way that is so gentle and somehow bruising at the same time, and the target comes after them in the alley.

Junhui looks at the man, sees the hate in the man’s eyes just for these two boys that kissed, and he halts.

There’s that look, that condemned look in the man’s eyes, and Junhui feels like he’s twenty again, like this was eight months ago and his mom had looked at him like that, with those eyes. Junhui feels like he’s in Shenzhen, like he never really grew up, like he never really left, like he never ran away. Junhui feels like he’s suffocating.

Minghao steps around Junhui, looks at Junhui in the eye, and there’s significance there. Junhui holds his breath.

Minghao presses his lips against Junhui’s again, and then steps away. Junhui closes his eyes and holds his breath.

When he opens them again, the muffled yells have stopped, and all he can hear is Minghao’s breathing somewhere behind him, heavy and full.

He doesn’t want to turn around.

He turns.

Junhui turns to look at Minghao, and it looks all wrong.

His hair is messed up, sticking up in the back, his knuckles are bruised, and he has red splattered on his face, dashes of scarring color on his tan skin. It looks marring, especially since Junhui knows how it got there.

Minghao looks at Junhui, but Junhui hates it, hates how ugly Minghao looks with red painted on his skin, reminders of the pain and destruction that should never be associated with Minghao’s beauty.

But then, but then, Minghao steps closer, runs the back of his hand down Junhui’s face in a whisper of a touch, as if he’s scared that Junhui will bolt. But Junhui leans into it, leans into the feather of a touch that Minghao is giving him.

He remembers the man’s eyes.

Junhui backs away, backs away just in time to stop this, to remind himself that he can’t have this.

He thinks of the man’s eyes, thinks of his mom’s eyes.

He thinks of MingMing’s eyes too, how they had looked sad, confused, and loving, when Junhui had been forced to leave him. He thinks of how MingMing had loved him so much, had loved Junhui more than Junhui had known what to do with, and how MingMing had ended up in the hospital room for it.

Junhui can’t breathe.

He steps away.

Minghao’s face falls, just slightly. “Junhui,” he whispers, and there’s too much packed into it: sympathy, sorrow, and worst of all, fondness. Love, maybe.

Junhui steps back.

The light coming from the lights on the alley walls is faint, faded, weak, but it catches on Minghao’s cheekbones just right, illuminating him.

Breathtaking.

Junhui is reminded of the lights back when he first met Minghao, and how beautiful he was back then too. He thinks about how long ago that was, how much older he is now, how that felt like such an insignificant moment from so long ago. And now he’s standing here, the same man in front of him, just as beautiful as ever, with the same bright lights coming down to cradle his cheekbones. It’s the same man, the same lights, and Junhui knows that he’s the same man that he was standing there almost six years ago- just as afraid of his own heart and just as afraid of himself.

Step forward, he tells himself. One step forward, one moment of strength, one moment of Junhui telling himself he deserves this, and he could have it, could have Minghao in his arms, could maybe have the love and happiness that he has been chasing, or maybe running away from, this whole time.

But Junhui is weak. He’s always been weak.

He thinks of the man’s eyes.

He steps away. Minghao’s expression doesn’t shift, but his eyes soften, pain and pity swirling in their depths.

Junhui turns and leaves.

He thinks of the man’s eyes. He thinks of his mom’s. Of MingMing’s. Of Minghao’s.

He doesn’t run. But it’s a near thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, not completely happy with how this turned out-- it's windy and long and confusing, but maybe it's fitting because junhui sure is a mess of emotions, isn't he?


	3. Running To

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junhui runs. He finds himself.

Junhui runs.

He’s not proud of it. He knows he’s a coward, but at least his demons have taken the form of something (someone) solid, something he can identify and run away from.

He sees Minghao. He sees Minghao when he closes his eyes, when he looks at the dark sky above him, when he stands on the balcony to see the stars, regardless of where he is.

He sees Minghao on balconies, hears Minghao’s words whisper over and over in his head, feels the ghost of his lips on his own when he closes his eyes and tilts his head back to bask in the comfort of the dark sky above him.

He sees Minghao’s eyes when he closes his eyes. He always forces his own eyes open to ignore the way that love lingers in Minghao’s.

He runs, to Sydney, to Manila, to Auckland, to Singapore, to anywhere where he thinks Minghao won’t be. He stares at the ceiling of every room that he sleeps in, stares at the weak stars that try to desperately keep the darkness away, stares at the bannister clutched in his hands, stares at the balcony next to him and wonders when he got so used to Minghao somehow appearing next to him.

He ignores the way that disappoint rises up in his throat everytime he turns and Minghao isn’t there.

\---

“Have you ever been in love?” Junhui asks.

Wonwoo pauses on the other end of the phone, and then says, “maybe, once. It’s hard to remember.”

Junhui somehow knows exactly what he means: that love from before this life feels so minimal compared to the life that he lives now, feels so small in comparison to everything that he feels now. He thinks of MingMing, thinks of the love that he felt back then, and how small it seems now.

He thinks of Minghao, thinks about how Minghao tilts his head back to bask in the darkness of the night sky, and feels something deeper, something he’s not quite sure he’s ever felt before. It feels deep, and it makes everything seem small.

“I loved this guy once,” Junhui says, “but now it feels small.”

Wonwoo hums in agreement. “Doesn’t quite seem real, now.”

Junhui asks, “have you ever been in love after you joined?”

Wonwoo hums on the other end of the line. “Love,” he says, and his voice sounds slightly flat. Junhui stiffens. “There aren’t many things that we deserve in this world,” he says, “I wonder if love is one of them.”

Junhui looks out the window, thinks back to a time when he used to look at Wonwoo for comfort, still does, but now he realizes that Wonwoo is just as lost as he is, realizes that maybe everyone he knows is lost and looking for purchase, for something to hold onto. 

He’s never asked, but he wonders, wonders what Wonwoo is looking for, if anything, what Wonwoo could possibly be looking for that could make him happy. He doesn’t ask.

He wonders what Minghao is looking for. Wonders if he could ever be enough for Minghao. Wonders if he could ever let himself be enough for Minghao, be the thing that Minghao holds onto to ground himself. Wonders if he could ever let himself truly love Minghao, love Minghao in the way that Minghao deserves. Loving Minghao seems like an entire entity on its own-- beautiful and frightening and all-consuming and not small, never small, and Junhui aches because he wants so badly but knows that he could never deserve it.

He wonders if he’ll ever feel like he does.

“I wonder,” he mutters.

\---

Seungcheol calls him first. Junhui’s in Auckland.

Junhui steps onto the balcony, a cigarette between his teeth as he looks at his hands and steps out. It’s been almost a year now, almost a year of Seungcheol watching over him and helping him and Junhui can’t help but feel just as small as he did on that very first day. 

“Minghao said something interesting the other day,” Seungcheol says, and Junhui wonders in the back of his mind when Seungcheol began talking to Minghao. “About you, I guess, although I’ll admit that it was a little confusing. He sure likes to ramble sometimes.”

Junhui thinks that Minghao doesn’t ramble, that he says things with a purpose and with a tongue sharp enough to cut the ears of anyone listening.

“What did he say?” Junhui asks.

Seungcheol says, “I’m not quite sure. But I think he’s in love with you.”

Junhui hums. Looks out at Auckland underneath him and wonders where Jisoo is in the midst of all those buildings. Looks out further and wonders if Minghao is somewhere out there, past the sea on the horizon.

“I know,” Junhui says.

Seungcheol hums, a silent understanding, and Junhui looks harder, squints his eyes, can almost pretend to see Minghao across the vast spread of water. 

“You love him too?”

Junhui doesn’t answer.

Seungcheol says, sounding very far away, “I loved someone, once.”

This story doesn’t sound like it will end well. Nonetheless, he asks, “what happened?”

Seungcheol hums, thinks, says, “I loved him too much and didn’t let him love me.”

Junhui thinks about what Kris said so long ago:  _ everyone is running away from something. _ Junhui knows the answer, knows what Seungcheol will say, but he asks, “why not?”

“Because,” Seungcheol says, “I didn’t feel like I deserved it.”

Junhui looks up at the sky, light and sunny and he feels like the sun is glaring down at him, and he finally understands what Minghao means about the night being free. There’s something vulnerable, about standing here in the sun, and knowing that somehow, everyone can see right through you.

Junhui whispers, “is there a happy ending to this story?”

Seungcheol hums, and Junhui imagines him looking up at his own blue sky right now, in Sydney, and wonders if Seungcheol sees his love on the horizon, if he aches for the man that he pushed away. 

Seungcheol says, “maybe one day.”

“You think we’ll ever get there?”

A pause.

Seungcheol, on the other end of the phone and on the other side of the ocean, says, “one day we’ll accept the love that we deserve.”

Junhui closes his eyes. Sees Minghao standing there, bloody and looking at him with those deep eyes and so so so  _ beautiful _ , and he says, “one day.”

\---

He buys a house in Hong Kong. He felt like he needed to.  It’s small, but it’s his. It feels safe.

At night, he looks at the stars through his window. There’s no balcony. 

Junhui pretends like he isn’t aching for one.

\---

Junhui stares at his phone. 

There’s a message on it, from Minghao. It says,  _ where are you? _

Junhui doesn’t respond.

Minghao sends another one. It says,  _ I was lost, and then I found you.  _

A second. Another one. 

_ I hope you find yourself soon too. _

\---

It’s only a matter of time before Kris calls him.

Junhui walks slowly up the stairs. Holds his breath.

“Junhui,” Kris says when he opens the door. “Come in.”   


Junhui sits down.

Kris studies him over the table, and Junhui feels so vulnerable, so open and readable. He thinks of Minghao, who could always read him. 

Kris has a manila folder in his hand, but he places it down on his side of the desk, far out of Junhui’s reach. Kris looks down at it, eyebrows furrowed, and Junhui’s stomach sinks as he wonders what’s in it.

“Wen Junhui,” Kris says. “Where are you from?”

Junhui says, “Shenzhen.”

Kris hums. Says, “I’m from Guangzhou.”

He looks out the window. Junhui follows his line of sight, watches the clouds drift slowly across the gray sky. He wonders what Kris sees.

“I ran away from Guangzhou,” Kris says. “I was young. I left a lot of things, a lot of people behind.”

Junhui asks, “what were you running away from?”

“Everything,” Kris says. “I was wrong, in everyone’s eyes.”

Junhui echoes, asks, “wrong?”

Kris hums. He says, “Wrong, yes. Loved the wrong person, did the wrong things, felt wrong in that place, even in my home. Everything felt wrong to me.”

Junhui doesn’t know what to say, that kind of speechlessness that comes with knowing quite too clearly what the other person means. He settles on saying, “okay.”

Kris turns his dark eyes back to Junhui’s, and they’re somehow looking right at Junhui and yet not seeing him at all.

“I spent a long time,” Kris says, “running away from my demons. In the process, I left a lot of people behind, hurt a lot of people that I loved, still love.”

Junhui sits, not quite sure what Kris is saying.

Kris continues. “I hurt a lot of people,” Kris says softly, and he’s looking back out the window at the faraway horizon. “And yet, I remain the person that I hurt the most.”

He turns to look at Junhui again, and a sense of unease and dread begins to rise in Junhui’s throat, rising higher and higher because he has a feeling that this is not going somewhere Junhui wants to go.

Kris says, “there is a time in which we have to face our demons.”

Junhui doesn’t like the dark, haunted look in Kris’ eye. A slight frown etches itself on Kris’ sharp features, and, with dread in his chest, Junhui looks down at the folder on Kris’ desk.

He feels cold.

He can see the writing poking out from the corner of the folder. He would recognize that handwriting anywhere, the handwriting that used to adorn the lunches he took to school or the notes left for him on the fridge in his kitchen. The handwriting that used to be filled with love and adoration and a sense of family that now represents something cold, so cold, and Junhui feels the need to flee, to cry, to scream.

Because he sees what the handwriting says. There, written delicately and coldly, is his name.

Wen Junhui, it says. 

Junhui is cold, so cold.

Kris doesn’t say anything, just slides the folder across the desk to him.

Junhui is frozen.

“Junhui,” Kris says slowly, and his voice is deep, not just in tone, but in regret and in soberness. “We all have our demons. Sometimes, we can run away from them. Other times, they come running after us.”

Junhui wants to scream, but he’s frozen. Cold. Numb.

“Junhui, it seems like yours are coming after you.”

\---

Junhui does what he does best: runs.

He flees from the headquarters, his feet pounding against the sidewalk as if it will stop anything bad from happening. He runs, keeps running, until his feet feel raw and his lungs feel like they are about to collapse and his soul feels tired, trying to outrun time and go back to before everything went wrong, before his parents found him again, before they ever wanted him dead, back to when they still looked at him with love and fondness in their eyes.

Hong Kong passes in a blur, the river, the red lights, the people passing. He runs, doesn’t stop running, doesn’t think he could stop if he tried, because everything he was running away from had finally caught up with him.

He wishes he wasn’t gay. He wishes he could’ve just been normal, that he hadn’t fallen in love with MingMing in the first place, and now, Minghao. He wishes that he loved girls instead of boys, wishes that he could’ve pretended because pretending must be better than this. 

He wishes this wasn’t his life. 

He wishes his life hadn’t become like this.

He wishes for relief, but relief is so hard to find.

He wishes for freedom, but he has a sinking feeling that no matter how hard he runs, he’ll never truly be free.

\---

He runs for what feels like hours.

He doesn’t feel more free.

\---

He returns to his house, at one point. He’s not quite sure when.

His porch light is on, but he doesn’t think much of it, thinks he must’ve just left it on by mistake, but then he catches sight of the figure sitting cross-legged in front of the door.

Junhui holds his breath.

The figure looks up, and the porch light is weak, but it catches on his cheekbones brilliantly, his skin and hair looking soft under the faded yellow and his eyes bright and mouth stretched in a thin line.

Minghao is just a beautiful as ever.

“Junhui,” Minghao says, voice light and heavy at the same time.

Junhui breathes. He steps closer, walks until he’s right in front of Minghao, who has his head tipped back against the door and is watching him with those eyes that see everything.

Junhui drinks in the sight of Minghao, lets his heart calm down at the sight of him after missing him for so long. He stamps down the resentment that rises in his throat that tells him he doesn’t have the right to miss Minghao, doesn’t have the right to feel comforted by the sight of him.

“You know?” Junhui asks.

Minghao doesn’t respond, just looks up at him, and that is answer enough. Junhui doesn’t ask how Minghao knows, because Minghao can always just see right through him and somehow seems to know more about Junhui than Junhui will ever know.

Minghao says, “I’m sorry.”

Junhui shakes his head. “It’s not your fault.”

Minghao blinks at him, eyes dark and deep and significant in that way that they always are, and says, “I know, but I’m still sorry.”

Junhui wonders what that means, for Minghao to feel something for another person, wonders what the pain in Minghao’s eyes means when he looks at Junhui, but deep down, Junhui knows.

That he has somehow become Minghao’s anchor. Something to tie him down, something to care for, something that feels real.

He looks at Minghao, slight and somehow small against his front door.

He feels something, but he’s not quite sure what.

He feels numb and alive at the same time.

Junhui clears his throat, says, “would you like to come inside?”

Minghao blinks, nods.

Junhui reaches first, this time, and Minghao stares at his hand for a moment before slipping his slender fingers against Junhui’s.

Minghao stands, and the faded yellow of the porch light looks magnificent when reflected off of him.

They stand there, for a moment.

Minghao steps closer, slides his other hand up against Junhui’s jaw, and Junhui closes his eyes, relishes in the press of Minghao’s hand against him, calming his heart.

Minghao whispers, “Junhui.”

Junhui opens his eyes.

Minghao is looking back. It feels significant somehow. Junhui wonders if it’s love.

Junhui holds his breath.

Minghao kisses him.

It’s just a quick press of Minghao’s lips against his, soft and warm, and then Minghao is stepping away.

His hand falls from Junhui’s jaw, but he tightens his fingers where they’re intertwined with Junhui’s.

Minghao looks at him. Junhui breathes. 

Minghao says, “let’s go inside.”

\---

“What will you do?” Minghao asks, his legs stretched on the other side of the couch and wrapped in the blanket he had snatched off of the ground.

Junhui looks at him and sees a different side of Minghao, softer somehow, open and vulnerable but still brilliant and observant. Minghao looks different like this, the living room light struggling to remain lit above them and casting faded yellows that are a sharp contrast to the stars’ weak light that Junhui is so used to seeing Minghao under.

They’re not on a balcony, hundreds of feet above the ground, suspended in air and wondering when they will fall. They’re on a ratty couch, facing each other, Minghao’s legs stretched across the space between them so that his ankle is linked lightly with Junhui’s, firmly on the ground.

Junhui wonders what it means, and his head hurts.

He doesn’t feel like he deserves to have this, Minghao’s ankle pressed against his, Minghao’s soft eyes, Minghao across from him, Minghao.

Junhui says, “I don’t know.”

Minghao hums, shifts so that his ankle presses more firmly against Junhui.

“What do you want to do?” Minghao asks.

Junhui says, “pretend it never happened.”

Minghao doesn’t laugh, but his eyes crinkle up in the corners, fondly exasperated and Junhui wonders, again, what that look means.

He feels like he’ll always be this way around Minghao— wondering what it means.

“That’s what you want,” Minghao says, and he reaches back to brush a hand through his hair, making it fall softly across his forehead, “but what do you need to do?”

Junhui doesn’t know.

Minghao must see it, just as he sees everything with Junhui, because he leans forward and catches Junhui’s other ankle in a loose grasp.

“You can’t keep running,” Minghao says. “You’re running away from your past and not running towards anything. You can’t keep going on like this.”

Minghao’s eyes are soft and his hand is warm. 

Junhui feels lost, just as lost as always.

“What are you saying?” Junhui asks.

Minghao studies Junhui, eyes dark now, and Junhui almost forgets that Minghao is younger than him, just by a year, but is somehow infinitely more wise.

“I think you need to go,” Minghao says. “See your client, that is.”

Junhui’s heart drops.

Junhui whispers, “I can’t do that.”

Minghao tightens his grip, like he’s willing Junhui to see something. 

“Junhui,” Minghao says slowly and deeply, and it’s rich with something like sorrow and pain, “your demons are coming after you. It’s the universe’s funny way of telling you to face them.”

“I don’t know if I’m strong enough to,” Junhui whispers, and it’s a sudden confession, soft and quiet and hanging in the spaces between them, and he hates the way that Minghao’s eyes soften, the way his mouth tightens around the edges, the way his hand loosens around Junhui’s ankle.

He worries, worries that Minghao will judge him, but then:

“I think you’re one of the strongest people I know,” Minghao whispers, and it’s a sudden confession too, open and honest and hanging in the space between them.

Junhui thinks that he isn’t strong, is weak, has always been weak, had run away from everything, had run away from  _ Minghao _ once.

But there’s something in Minghao’s eyes, how urgent they are, how open, and Junhui has trouble remembering the last time someone looked at him like that, wonders if anyone ever did.

It’s easy then, to decide.

\---

It’s light outside when they leave Hong Kong, Minghao blearily blinking his eyes against the sun and Junhui jittering because he hadn’t slept last night, watched Minghao sleep softly in the moonlight and thought of how his mom must have aged in the time since he last saw her.

He doesn’t remember asking Minghao to come with him, but Minghao must’ve known, must’ve seen it on Junhui’s face and reached down to pull on his boots when Junhui muttered a soft, “I’m going.” 

He’s grateful for Minghao here, beside him.

He grips onto the railing as they wait in line at the border customs to get to Shenzhen.

He wonders, distinctly, how she knew he was alive when he had faked his death. Junhui wonders if she mourned for him. Then he realizes that she wants him dead now, and that she probably didn’t. It doesn’t sting quite like he thought it would.

The subway in Shenzhen is crowded, and Junhui feels small again, suffocated amongst the taller passengers. Minghao hooks his fingers into Junhui’s belt loops, and they stand like that, swaying against each other in the busy crowd.

Junhui feels like he’s sinking.

Minghao tightens his fingers against Junhui’s belt loops, tugging him forward just the slightest bit. It isn’t until then that Junhui realizes that there is a group of boys, staring at them from the corner.

Minghao is silent, but he’s holding onto Junhui’s belt loops so tightly his knuckles are turning white. Junhui stares at him.

He reaches down to tug at Minghao’s hand. It drops from its hold, and Junhui is quick to slide his fingers against Minghao’s then.

He wonders when he became so brave.

Junhui whispers, “you don’t have to be afraid.”

Minghao looks at him, and his eyes are full of depth, of love, of pain. 

“I’m not,” Minghao says, and tightens his fingers around Junhui’s. “I’m not.”

Junhui understands, then, that the fear in Minghao was not for himself, but for Junhui, and it makes Junhui feel like he’s floating, to be so cared for, to be the subject of the concern of this beautiful, beautiful man standing in front of him.

He understands, and he wonders what he ever did to deserve it.

He wonders if he’ll ever feel worthy.

The train sways. Junhui holds on.

\---

It’s dark by the time they reach Junhui’s old apartment complex, and it’s easy to sneak inside. The clouds hang over them, dreary and dark.

Junhui can’t breathe.

He twists the doorknob open. Minghao is solid behind him.

The house looks empty, but Junhui has been a part of the mafia for long enough to know when there’s someone in the house. He can sense it.

He steps in quietly, lets Minghao follow him in, and then shuts the door, letting it close with a quiet click.

There’s one pair of shoes by the shoe rack: his mom’s. 

It’s silent. Junhui holds his breath. He listens to Minghao breath beside him, steady as ever.

He steps forward.

\---

She’s in the kitchen, hands braced on the edge of the sink as she stares out the window. Junhui wonders what she’s looking for out there, if she’s looking for him on the horizon.

“Mama,” Junhui says, and his voice quivers in a way that he hates. He hadn’t said that in almost a year now, a year since he faked his death to get away from Shenzhen, a year since he started running away from something he could never really escape, not when it existed in his head.

She doesn’t jump. She turns slowly, the fading sunlight coming in the window to frame her face.

Junhui holds his breath.

She looks the same, with a few added wrinkles by her eyes. Junhui wonders if it was because of him, because of the stress that he added to her life, or if it was just because of the natural process of life that aged her so.

“Wen Junhui,” she says, and it’s cold, so unbelievably cold that even Minghao sucks in a breath from behind him. 

Junhui feels cold.

This feels so vastly different from the home that he grew up in, from the mother that had raised him, and Junhui thinks for a moment that it’s just because he faked his death and hadn’t been here in almost a year now, is a changed person, but then he remembers that this was also how it was when he left, when he was young and tired and scared and in love with the wrong person.

Cold.

“Mama,” Junhui says, and there’s iciness steeping into his voice too, now. He steps forward.

“I thought you were dead,” she said, and her voice is flat, toneless, and it hurts Junhui in a way that he had pretended not to be hurting for the past year, like he hadn’t just been forsaken by his own mother for something that he couldn’t change.

“Clearly not,” Junhui says, but his voice is weak, just like him, “if you were willing to pay for my death.”

His mom studies him, looks him up and down without a single change in expression, and Junhui wonders if she ever truly cared about him.

“There was no body,” she says slowly. “We found you soon enough. You weren’t careful buying that house in Hong Kong.”

Junhui looks at her. 

“You looked for me just to try and have me killed?” Junhui asks.

She doesn’t say anything.

She turns back to the sink, washes her hands under the running water. Junhui watches her back.

“That boy, your  _ lover _ ,” she says, spits the last word like it was a curse, like it was a disgrace, “is dead.”

MingMing. 

Junhui doesn’t breathe. Can’t.

“How?” he chokes out. Minghao steps closer, almost pressed against Junhui’s back.

“He killed himself,” she says. “It wasn’t long after you supposedly died. He married a girl and then did it not a week afterwards. I guess he couldn’t take it.”

Junhui hears what she’s saying underneath it, hears the insults of how MingMing was weak, of how MingMing couldn’t handle the life that he had chosen.

Junhui clenches his hands into fists.

MingMing was young, lovely, full of life, and forced to live an ostracized life, forced into a marriage that he didn’t want, forced to live a life where he was suffocated. Junhui aches for the boy he loved, aches so deeply in the corners of his soul, because he did, he loved MingMing in a way that was bigger than either of them could handle at the time, in a way that was scary and daunting and meant nothing but disaster. 

In that moment, Junhui aches. He mourns for the boy that he loved and left behind. 

Misery rises high in his throat.

He reaches forward, grabs his mom by the back of her sweater, shoves her up against the counter.

He places his face close to hers, feels a surge of courage rise up from within as he thinks about MingMing’s eyes, how they were soft and lovely and sad when they looked at Junhui.

“Is that what you wanted for me too?” he asks through clenched teeth, tightening his fists in the front of her sweater. “Do you want me gone too?”

His mom spits. “You’re disgusting,” she snarls, “you’re disgusting and weak and you’ll never be a real man. You’re all wrong, you never fit in here, and you’ll never fit in anywhere. You’re an abomination.”

Junhui almost steps back.

It’s different hearing those words from her mouth instead of in his own head. 

He understand now, that self-hatred comes in the form of the words other people had spat at him. 

He stands his ground. He presses his mom closer to the counter. 

“You deserve to die,” his mom says, spitting. “You should’ve died a year ago, and you should be dead now.”

Junhui steps back. He brings out the knife from his boot.

“Do you really hate me?” Junhui asks. “Do you really hate me for being gay?”

“I hate you for being  _ weak. _ ”

Junhui has his blade pressed against her neck in an instant.

It would be so easy, so easy, to just slit her throat and kill the person that had been haunting him for so long, the person that had made him believe that he was nothing, that he was worse than nothing.

“Don’t do it,” Minghao whispers from behind him, and Junhui had forgotten he was there.

“Don’t do it,” Minghao repeats, and it’s soft and laced with something tender that Junhui does not deserve to receive. “Killing her won’t do anything for you. You’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

“She deserves it,” Junhui grits out. “She’s made my life miserable. She tried to change me, she hated me, and now she wants me dead.”

Minghao steps closer, his voice level. “Yes, she deserves it. But you don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve to have to kill her.”

Junhui looks at him. There’s something in Minghao’s eyes: passion, love, and Junhui is struck with the realization that it’s all for him. Minghao’s hand trembles by his side, and Junhui remembers, all of the sudden, Minghao standing across him in Hong Kong all those years ago, young and small and afraid, and now he’s standing next to him, just as afraid, but for different reasons. For Junhui.

He looks back at his mother, the woman that had raised him, had given up on him. His hand shakes around the knife, thinks of the new ways that she would haunt him if he killed her.

Minghao breathes behind him. He knows, suddenly, that Minghao was right. Always is.

She was made of hate, but Junhui is not. Never was, never will be. All Junhui had done was love.

He drops the knife.

From behind him, he can hear Minghao sigh in relief. His mom, the woman, stares back at him, her mouth hung open.

Minghao steps forward and circles a gentle hand around Junhui’s wrist, tugging him slightly into his embrace. “Junhui,” he whispers. Junhui lets himself be pulled backwards into Minghao’s arms.

His mom doesn’t say anything, just looks up at them. Junhui hates it, hates her, because her eyes are so utterly blank and devoid of emotion that Junhui can hardly even recognize the woman that had raised him. 

“You’ll go to hell,” she says, and it’s dripping with venom. 

“No,” Minghao says, firm, before Junhui can do anything. “He won’t. But you will.”

She scoffs. “He’s  _ gay _ . And not to mention that he’s the one who’s killing people for money.”

Junhui feels Minghao move before he sees it, and his reflexes are too slow to stop him. Minghao slinks across the room so quickly and silently that Junhui is stunned. 

Minghao gets in her face, bringing her eyes close to his and Junhui can hear her breath catch in her throat.

“At least,” Minghao says, and it’s full of venom and hatred and protectiveness and a little bit of love that makes Junhui’s heart pound, “he’s not the one willing to kill their son for something that he can’t change.”

“What do you know,” his mom spits back at him. “You know nothing about him, you know nothing about what he has done to this family.”

Minghao glares at her coolly, and he brings his hand up to tilt her chin up at him. “I know about love,” Minghao says, “and I know how to treat the ones that I care about.”

Junhui’s mom opens her mouth to speak, but Minghao is quicker. He tilts her chin up even more. “I would think very hard about the position you’re in,” he says, voice low and threatening. He turns his hand to catch her chin in a tight grip. 

He studies her, and Junhui and his mom’s breath both stop in their chest. 

“Ironic, isn’t it,” he says. “Here we are, a mother and an assassin.” He tilts his head to the side, examining her with a coldness that has her shivering. “And yet, the assassin somehow knows more about love than the mother ever could.”

He lets her go. 

In three steps, he’s reached Junhui, got their fingers tangled together, and is pulling him out the door, away, away, away.

\---

Junhui can’t feel anything. 

He can’t feel anything except his fingers and how warm they are in the spots where Minghao’s are pressed against his.

“I’m sorry,” he can distantly hear Minghao saying over and over again. “I’m sorry that you had to live with that monster of a woman. I can’t believe that you had to go through that, you were just a kid, you-”

Junhui says, very quietly, “Minghao.”

“You were just a kid,” Minghao whispers, just as quiet. “You were a kid, and she was supposed to be there for you, supposed to protect you, she-”

“Minghao-”

“How could she do that to you?” Minghao asks, and his voice wavers uncertainly. “How could she treat you like that all those years ago and how could she treat you like this now?”

It takes Junhui a moment to realize that Minghao is crying.

It takes him by surprise.

Even now, he’s beautiful, the gentle slide of tears falling down his cheeks in a way that is somehow elegant, even in sorrow. Junhui, unbidden, reaches out and wipes a tear off Minghao’s cheeks with a thumb.

Minghao turns his head into Junhui’s palm, tucking in close. 

“Why are you crying?” Junhui asks. 

Minghao shakes his head. He presses a kiss, soft and light, against the palm of Junhui’s hand, and Junhui can feel its warmth spreading all over his body. 

“Because I love you,” Minghao says, and Junhui feels his heart stutter in his chest, “and it hurts to think of someone hurting you like that.”

Junhui doesn’t say anything, just stares at Minghao’s face pressing against his hand, those three words bouncing around in his head. Junhui’s not dumb, he knows that those three words don’t mean that much, that hearing those three words doesn’t mean that everything is suddenly okay now and his life is any less messed up. 

But, somehow, it feels like warmth, seeping from his head to his toes. 

“I love you,” Minghao says again, and Junhui looks into his eyes and sees that Minghao knows, Minghao knows what Junhui is thinking, because he has always been able to see right through him, and it feels safe. There’s a trace of a smile there, soft on Minghao’s lips. “I love you, and it hurts to think about what you have had to go through.”

This hurts too, Junhui thinks, but maybe in a good way. It hurts to think of Minghao hurting because of Junhui, of Minghao caring about Junhui so deeply to think about him like this. 

“You love me?” Junhui asks, and it sounds weak on his ears, weaker than he would have liked it to sound. 

Minghao does smile then, a soft, fond look on his face that makes Minghao look beautiful, so infinitely beautiful, that Junhui’s chest aches with the beauty of it. “Yes,” he whispers. “You deserve to have someone love you.”

Junhui thinks that he doesn’t. Doesn’t deserve to have Minghao love him like this.

Minghao pulls away from his hand. Steps closer to Junhui.

He doesn’t kiss him. Minghao tugs at Junhui’s wrists, pulling Junhui close against him, pulling him into his thin arms and against his chest that is somehow warmer and safer and more like home than anything Junhui has ever felt before. 

_ This is how it feels to be loved _ , Junhui thinks,  _ to be able to find a home in a person _ .

Minghao says, “you deserve to have someone love you.”

Junhui thinks of Minghao crying for him in the alley, thinks of his mom back in his old home on the floor, thinks of Minghao’s warm arms and his warm heart and how he loves Junhui, loves Junhui, loves Junhui.

He thinks of MingMing, back then, and he thinks of Minghao, now. He thinks that he loves Minghao, knows that he loves Minghao, and he wonders if he deserves this.

He’s spent so long running from himself, he thinks. So long trying to run away from who he really is because Shenzhen had made him feel like he had to.

He feels Minghao’s pulse against him. It’s steady.

Junhui has run for so long, and he’s so tired.

He thinks of his mom’s eyes, dark and haunting and full of resentment for a son that did nothing wrong but love, love deeply for someone wrong, someone she thought was wrong.

Minghao’s eyes are bright and deep and significant. Minghao sees something good in him, Junhui thinks. Minghao sees something worth loving in him, and it feels like a comfort, that someone as free and bright and beautiful like Minghao could love him.

Junhui is tired of running away from himself, running away from the love that he should’ve accepted with open arms because he’s just a human who loves, but didn’t because he had been told he doesn’t deserve this all his life.

Junhui thinks that maybe he deserves this.

Minghao’s pulse is steady.

Junhui breathes. It feels a little bit like freedom, a little bit like a new beginning.

Slowly, so slowly, underneath the darkness of the free night and the moon that shines, Junhui brings his trembling hands to rest on Minghao’s back.

They look like they belong there.

Minghao smiles against Junhui’s skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's it for junhao!mafia folks! hope you enjoyed this journey of self-searching
> 
> there will be a little epilogue to follow, a possible another work in the series (can you guess who the next couple will be?)
> 
> follow me on twitter @sunshinesvt


	4. Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three years later.

Time passes.

Here’s how it goes:

A month in:

Waking up next to Minghao in the early morning when the sun is just barely peeking up over the horizon, leaning over to trace his fingertips over Minghao’s collarbones, drawing warmth into Minghao’s skin and willing Minghao to understand.

Thinking that Minghao doesn’t know, and then shaking him awake with a “hey, I love you.”

Minghao blinking up sleepily at him, soft and warm and solid, and pulling Junhui in the meet him.

Two months in:

Minghao turning to Junhui on the balcony, eyes bright and a rare smile etching across his features and it’s beautiful, so beautiful that Junhui has to kiss him then, pressed up against the balcony railing with the dark sky stretching above them and hundreds of feet off the ground, suspended and yet somehow so secure.

Three months in:

Fighting about a mission when Minghao comes back bloody and bruised and Junhui feels like the world has collapsed in on him when he watches Minghao fall to his knees in front of him, clutching at his stomach.

Screaming at each other as soon as Minghao can get up from the infirmary bed, screaming about what it means to be careful and the responsibilities that they have now, to each other. Screaming until Junhui’s throat feels raw and his eyes feel impossibly dry from the effort not to cry, until Minghao is shaking, from his voice to his hands that are gently reaching for him.

Reaching for Minghao because even when they’re screaming, he is Junhui’s safety, and Junhui huddles impossibly close, muttering “sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” over and over and over again to try and soothe over the rough patches, over the words that they had yelled at each other in pain and helplessness.

Five months in:

Getting called into Kris’ office when they’re back in Hong Kong, with a folder on the table and Kris’ eyes dark and sweet when he looks at them, looks at the two of them, at the space between them.

Kris sliding the folder across the table and saying, “it’s not a mission. It’s job offers, for the head of Hong Kong.”

Taking it, smiling at Minghao with something like happiness and love.

(Kris calls Junhui back after Minghao leaves, looking out the window and saying, “you’re a good man Junhui. Good men are our saviors.”

Junhui asks, “where will you go?”

Kris watches the horizon out the window, and there’s a smile there. Junhui thinks it looks a little bit like freedom.

Kris says, “Guangzhou. Home.”)

Six months in:

Creating an office space that is all theirs and having to rewrite the rules a little bit because joint heads of headquarters don’t really work. Junhui beginning to doubt that it could really work, with the two of them, but then Minghao hooks a finger in Junhui’s belt loops, pulling him close, and Junhui suddenly forgets that he ever doubted this.

Eight months in:

Getting a call from his brother, and Junhui stares at the phone and doesn’t answer. It goes to voicemail.

(He listens to it later, on the balcony with Minghao lounging beside him. It’s a minute of breathing, and then a whispered, “I’m sorry.” It’s somehow not enough and way too much.)

A year:

Seungcheol calling him on a late night, with a voice that Junhui knows means that he found another stray, was trying to patch up another kid, taking care of everyone but himself.

Junhui goes.

The kid is young, impossibly young, just under two, with eyes that are big and bright and innocent and Junhui feels his heart break because this kid is old enough to feel pain but too young to know why.

Minghao picking the kid up, cradling him in his arms, and the kid mellows, calms, leans back on Minghao like Minghao is a safety, is a home, and Junhui understands.

They take him back to Hong Kong.

(They call him baobei for a long time, until one day, he latches onto Minghao’s index finger and says, “Samuel.”)

A year and a couple of months:

Junhui watching Minghao close the door to Samuel’s room, softly, and then hearing Samuel whimper “Papa” on the other side.

Junhui holding his breath and then Minghao laughing.

Samuel saying “Daddy” next and then it’s Minghao’s turn to hold his breath. 

(He sleeps with them that night.

Junhui wakes up at around 3 a.m. to Samuel kicking his side and Minghao’s soft breaths. He closes his eyes again, waits for sleep to take him again, safe and warm because he was haunted by his family for so long but now he has his own, built with shaking hands and with love and care and warmth.)

A year and a half:

Minghao coming back into their little suite, arms full of paperwork and hair sticking up in a million directions and smile bright, so bright when he spots Samuel dozing on Junhui’s lap and the TV playing a cartoon.

Junhui leaning into Minghao’s kiss, and then Minghao saying, “marry me,” whispered with a smile and a laugh, and it feels like warmth spreading across Junhui’s chest, beautiful and full and promising.

Junhui saying, “yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.”

A year and eight months:

Junhui holding his breath when he sees Minghao in his suit, when he holds Minghao in his arms as they sway to a cheesy love song that Samuel had liked, when he looks at Minghao and thinks that this is what happiness is like, and that he can’t believe he ever denied himself this.

They’re husbands, and Junhui mutters that to Minghao over and over and over again until even Wonwoo is fed up with it and telling them to shut it.

A year and ten months: 

Samuel’s third birthday coming around, and Junhui holds him close, impossibly close, and smiling as Minghao takes a photo of them in front of the cake.

Minghao beaming and both of them and Junhui pressing a soft kiss to Samuel’s head, to his son’s head, and the warmth spreads until Junhui is sure that he’s not the only one warm, until he’s sure that Minghao and Samuel must feel it coming off of him in waves too.

(Junhui thinks that maybe this is happiness.

Actually, he knows that this is happiness.)

\---

Wonwoo comes one day, and Junhui welcomes his best operative, his best friend, with open arms.

He’s tired these days, more than usual. Junhui wonders why, but he thinks he knows.

The sky stretches above them, dark sky open and somehow bright. Junhui breathes out, watches the smoke billow out in front of him.

“Mingyu?” he asks, and Wonwoo sucks in a breath. Junhui knows that he’s got him, knows from the look on Wonwoo’s face that Wonwoo is so incredibly in love with Mingyu, knows from his records that Wonwoo has been chasing Mingyu around.

Junhui thinks that Wonwoo looks too tired for a man in love.

He thinks back when he was younger, when they were both younger, when Junhui was young and scared and tired, so tired, from running away from love and never accepting that it’s what he deserved.

He sucks in a breath, says, “You’re allowed to be happy, you know. You deserve it.”

Wonwoo scoffs, says, “I kill people for a living, Junhui, I hardly deserve it.”

It hurts a little bit, to think that Wonwoo has suffered so long in the lost space of his own head. Wonwoo, who is good, so good, kind, gentle, trusting, and Junhui wonders again what Wonwoo is running from and knows that he’ll never know the answer.

“You’re too good for this,” Junhui says, and he thinks of Kris saying good men are our saviors and thinks that yes, Wonwoo was his savior once, and now he has to be Wonwoo’s.

Wonwoo opens his mouth. Junhui knows what’ll come out.

Samuel cuts them off, and Junhui goes to his son, but not without one last look at Wonwoo on the balcony, looking out at the night and still lost.

Junhui has been there. He hopes Wonwoo finds his way out too.

\---

Wonwoo follows Mingyu around, chases him and Junhui wonders if he’s doing it because he’s desperately in love with Mingyu and thinks that he’ll catch him one day, or if it’s because he’s desperately in love with Mingyu and knows that he’ll never catch him, and that this is all he has.

Junhui aches for him.

Across from him, Minghao stares at the folder in front of him, and says gently, “Mingyu took a mission here, should be here with a couple days.”

Junhui nods, says, “I’ll prepare a room then.”

Minghao says, “prepare two. Where Mingyu goes, Wonwoo will not be far behind.”

They look at each other, and Junhui sees years of love, depth, significance, in Minghao’s eyes.

Minghao says, “he’ll be okay.”

Junhui says, “I hope so.”

Minghao says, “you turned out alright.”

Junhui laughs, says, “I suppose I did.”

Minghao smiles then, his eyes crinkling in the corners with added wrinkles over the years, beautiful, oh so beautiful and entirely within Junhui’s reach. 

Junhui stands and heads over to the balcony doors in their office, just for old times’ sake. 

Minghao follows.

The night is dark when Junhui steps outside, the stars high in the sky and weak against the darkness, their son deep asleep in his room, Hong Kong bright and alive, and Minghao right beside him. It feels like happiness. Like freedom.

He eyes Shenzhen on the horizon. It looks small.

Junhui breathes. He doesn’t feel small anymore.

Minghao leans on the balcony railing beside him, leaning with his back against the skyline and Junhui thinks that Minghao looks beautiful, just as beautiful as he did all those years ago, with the red against his skin and shining brightly, like a beacon of light that illuminates against the dark night, like a safe haven that Junhui found while lost. 

Junhui remembers, all those years ago, standing across from Minghao in that alley.

“We met before,” Junhui whispers. “When we were young, before the mafia, before all of this. We met before. In an alley in Hong Kong. I remember.”

Minghao laughs and turns to him, tucking his chin on Junhui’s shoulder and pulling Junhui’s back close against his chest, and Junhui feels warm, so warm. “I remember,” Minghao says. “I didn’t think you did too.”

“That was a bad time,” Junhui muses. “I was lost.”

Minghao hums, and Junhui can feel it against his skin, against his back, all over. “That was my first day,” Minghao says. “I had arrived in Hong Kong for my first day as an operative.”

Junhui turns in Minghao’s arms to look at him. “You were beautiful, even back then.” Minghao smiles at him. “I felt like I was suffocating,” Junhui says.

Minghao pulls him close, says, “I felt like I was floating away.”

Junhui asks, “and now?”

Minghao smiles against his skin, and there’s a press of lips against his neck. Junhui smiles.

Minghao says, “I found you.”

Yes, Junhui thinks, this feels like happiness. This feels like not being lost. Like being found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what a journey this has been— thank you guys for reading this ramble of a story!


End file.
